Baby Progress Report

I'm 35 weeks pregnant. Baby #2 is officially due November 12, but we started having some indicators this week that this baby will not stay (or be allowed to stay) where he is for that long. My doctor and I are hoping for at least November 1 as I will be past the 38 week mark (best for lung development), finished with work (best for my stress level), and my mom will be back from Australia (best for a successful labor).

The relevant history: Owen had IUGR (inter-uterine growth restriction), and was statistically a low birth weight baby (less than 5 1/2 pounds full term). Basically, he stopped growing in the last few weeks of pregnancy, and I was induced at 38 weeks because he was showing signs of distress. Our scrawny kid was beautiful in our eyes, but most full term babies have chubby legs...

People keep looking at me and saying, "You're 35 weeks?! You look tiny." Yes, a compliment, but also a good summary of the potential challenges. Over the last month, my belly has grown very little and I'm not putting on weight. Awesome for losing baby weight later, but not so awesome for the end of pregnancy when the baby is supposed to be doing two things: finishing lung development and PUTTING ON WEIGHT.

For those reasons, we are watching this baby's growth a bit more closely this time around. I was measuring on track through 32 weeks - yea! - but my measurement was starting to lag at this week's doctor visit. We had an ultrasound at 34 weeks that showed baby was about 1 1/2 weeks behind in growth. Not that big of a deal, as nobody expects me to grow an 8 pound baby. What will be more important is whether baby shows good growth between now and our follow-up ultrasound on October 19.

I also had my first session hooked up to the monitors this week and we discovered that some of the "baby stretching" that I've been feeling is actually contractions. Not frequent, not painful, and thankfully not producing any action that would land me on bed rest, but enough that I should be aware. As my doctor said, "Maybe this baby will show up early on his own and we won't have to push him along." Wait for November 1 please!

What it means: I will likely be spending quality time attached to the monitors at each of my weekly doctor visits. This will gage my contractions and also watch for slow baby heart rates that would indicate distress. If all looks good, we'll just keep waiting for a natural occurring later. If we see challenges, then I get to make more frequent visits to the doctor (yea!), all the while trying not to stress out about the things that I'm NOT getting done while sitting in their little closet of a monitoring room. Maybe I can bring my laptop and get some work done...

Big Dig Day

I'm playing a little blog catch-up because I wanted to get pictures posted of the best EVER kids event that Owen and I attended a few weeks back. One of the local childrens' charities held a "Big Dig Day" fundraiser. Knife River is a heavy construction company (the kind that builds roads, bridges, etc), with an equipment yard out in Tumalo. They opened up the yard for the day and for a $5 donation, kids of all ages had the opportunity to climb around and "drive" the dump trucks, cement mixers, excavators, bull dozers, etc.

These machines were HUGE - in some of them, I couldn't reach Owen from the ground and had to climb up in the cab after him. Thank goodness for tons of understanding parents around who were more than willing to let the pregnant mommy pass her kid down to a stranger and help me down the ladder!
Knife River even gave the first 100 kids free admission with free t-shirts and plastic hard hats. They also set up a few huge gravel piles and invited everyone to bring their toy diggers along for some major construction. Throw in a pizza booth and you have kiddo bliss. Too bad it's only a once/year event. We'll be back!

Bellies

I'm not one to take belly shots throughout my pregnancy. I kind of wish I had, but I can't go back now. However, in Seattle I did get to connect with two dear friends who are also expecting boys in the next month or so. Amy and I got this pic after our night out with Liz. She's due any day, so she would have been about 36 weeks in this pic and I at 32...
Doesn't she look great? I'm stretching to try and hide the double chin, but Amy is slender except for that baby belly.

Sheri and I also got a great pic at her baby shower. She's due just 5 days after me, but is such a tiny little thing that her belly has no where to go but straight out. So cute.
Someone's camera also has a picture of Tara and I from her shower two weeks ago. They welcomed baby Ian into the world Sunday night - Hooray! What a treat to have all these little ones joining us in the next couple weeks.

Are you kidding me?

Nine days ago: We were enjoying playgroup at the pool - splashing, floating, soaking up the sun, and eating lunch outside in our swimsuits.

Eight days ago: Owen and I spent the day at my parents' Bend house and he played naked in a bucket of water on their deck. We were staying away from our house because this has been the scene for the last couple weeks:
(Scott is bravely tackling painting a large majority of our house before the baby arrives. Not a small task with our open ceilings and a large amount of painted trim. A task made harder when a 2-year old "helper" is around.)

Seven days ago: We rode bikes over to the high school to play in the volleyball pit.

Four days ago: The temperatures started dipping below freezing at night and I tried to save my tomatoes by covering them with a plastic drop cloth (that painting project has its perks).

Yesterday: I finally got my act together and got the tomato plants hung upside down in the garage to see if any of those 20 plump green ones will turn red.

This morning: I woke up, thinking we had gotten our first real overnight frost and then realized that it was a wee bit of snow falling at 7 am. An hour later, we were getting a solid dumping and the view out our front door was starting to resemble January:
By the time Owen and I left for Kiddoz (the indoor play place) to try and keep him out of the paint for the morning, the roads were covered with two legitimate inches and people were shoveling driveways. [Follow-up: Newspaper reports say we got 3-4 inches around town and up to SEVEN in some areas.] Are you kidding me? It's October 4th. I checked the calendar... twice. What happened to autumn? Everything is still summer green around here. I'd like at least a few weeks to enjoy some changing fall colors, please.

The summer/winter juxtaposition did make for some extra snow play accessories. The buckets and shovels we use for summer water play worked great to dig in the snow, and Owen spent at least a half hour digging up the leftover sidewalk chalk around our driveway and mashing it up to make red, orange, purple, and blue snow. Pretty fun. Pretty crazy!